Maybe Convinced on Skinnies and B&W’s

A couple of my spots are multiple fields together that end up being several hundred acres overall. There tends to be a decent amount of traffic birds along with birds using the area, sometimes up to several thousand. Inevitably they jump around each day for no rhyme or reason and have always done this. To help on visibility and drawing power I picked up 4dz big al b&w’s half way through this season. So far, I’ve set these out three times in the fields. Twice I placed em upwind of the fb’s (10 dz avians) about 40 yards and once to the left about 40 yards because we were on a field edge. Last hunt we set these on our traffic pond. We ran floaters, shells, fb’s with the b&w’s about 50 yds upwind.

First hunt, really good pulling power and the birds were coming in high like they saw the b&w’s but then dropped down quick and mostly lit with the fb’s. Some did drift over blinds about 40yds high and went to b&w’s and landed.

Second hunt, very few birds and the 3 groups that came went to the b&w’s we set 40 yards to our left. Nothing even looked at the fb’s. This was an afternoon hunt where everything came off in the last 30 minutes so we didn’t have time to make any adjustments.

Third hunt, we were on the x from previous nights scout. Loads of birds and they were drifting over the fb’s at about 40-50yds and dropped into b&w’s. This was a morning hunt and we had some time between flights so we pulled b&w’s and started them about 10yds upwind of fb’s. After this everything dropped right into the fb’s.

Fourth hunt on cattle pond where it’s 99% traffic birds. Just like the fields, seems they focused on b&w’s and would drift high over blind. After 2 groups doing this we moved the b&w’s and put em kept about 10 yds between those and the shell/fb’s. Did that and everything started to drop in front of us on the water like usual. They rarely would land in the grass much less two groups in a row.

I’ve always been skeptical of skinnies much less the no detail b&w’s. After these 4 hunts, it really tempting to pick up about 6dz more and just run those and see what happens. I can say we looked at the b&w’s from up to 1/2 mile away and they still popped. This was in turned beans, turned corn, and the typical grass you find around a cattle pond. The fb’s seem to disappear after a hundred yards. Also, 4dz b&w’s looks like twice that number and the 10dz fb’s looks like half of what it is. Maybe it’s something they haven’t seen or maybe it’s how much these things stand out. Regardless it might be worth some experimenting.

Interesting findings.
More and more guys are switching over to silos around here,every other field has pretty much the same 20-50 dozen full body set up and by mid season the birds are pretty wise to it, the ones that made the switch are still getting results from the silos.Surprised b&w's have never caught on around here,guess most feel you need the highly ornately painted decoys to kill them.
I picked up some cheap old style outlaws I intend to paint up as b&w's and see what the results are next season.

Blessed is the person who has earned the love of an old dog. Sydney Jeanne SewardThe constitution,confusing Liberals since 1789

I use to have a bigger spread of silos. there are times they are a big advantage, packing in, during the snow fall, heavy fog, tall cover, deep snow, and adding numbers if necessary
They are not my frontline decoys. I used my silos once this year, set in tall grass behind the spread 20-30 yards